High On Champagne
by spinoza-off
Summary: Set after the series finale. Cal is behaving strangely and Gillian wants to know why. But - are they prepared to face the intricate ways of love and friendship?
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is a story I tried to write a long time ago, after I saw the season 3 finale which turned out to be the series finale. I hated it and never posted it. Then I tried writing another Callian story which I ended up abandoning. But I'm missing LTM so much now, and I need a break from another fic that I'm writing; so I decided to give another chance to this story._

_I know it's not a great story. I can't get Cal right. I'm sorry about it, cause he's my favorite character. But hopefully it won't be awful. This will only be two chapters, by the way._

___I have so much respect for the writers of the LTM fandom that I am sort of ashamed to post this little thing. Don't take this as fake modesty but as real, true admiration for most of the stories I've read and still read here. In any case, t__hanks, everybody who stops by and reads. If you leave a review, I will probably love you even if you're a little mean. LOL. If you don't, thank you for reading. _

_Settings: it takes places after the season 3 / series finale, approximate one month after Cal's and Emily's conversation at the end._

_Rating: T for language and some very slight and probably too naive sexual references.  
_

**Disclaimer: I don't own Lie To Me, its characters and its storylines. I still remember them dearly, though.**

* * *

_So what are you waiting for_?

The question continues repeating itself in his mind.

Gillian comes into Cal's office. She's radiant as she used to be before Claire was murdered almost in front of her. It appears she's finally regaining some of the humour and glee of past times.

"Thanks for the chocolate shake", she says from the door, timidly but with a conspiratorial wink.

"Yeah."

He had stopped at Starbucks on his way to the office to get that one for her. She had a thing for shakes. He never understood why, but it was her thing, not his.

"You're actually doing a good job of becoming a gentleman, you know", she teases him, trying to get him to do the little dance they usually have.

He used to start those, but lately he's not doing it as often as he was doing it before Claire's death. He's not dancing around her with his little silly jokes and his evil boy looks. She assumed he was respecting her grief over the loss of a friend. He can be serious like that. Sometimes, he can; and he actually understands a whole lot about losing people, people you care about. Besides, he was making a great effort to cheer her up: this morning he brought chocolate milk for her, last week he took her to that Thai restaurant she really loved at the other corner of the city. He was doing stuff like that. Cheering her up. Getting her mood up. Showing he cared. But, at the same time, he wasn't being exactly his usual _self_. It's not that he's not outrageous or directly unbearable at work; it's that he's not nearly as teasing and childish and crazy as before. It's like he's downplaying himself now. Or maybe not. But it feels as if he were trying to portray Cal instead of just _being_ Cal, good or bad, whenever he was around her. For some reason, he's still doing it even though she's already feeling a little bit better.

Right now he seems to be in a dark mood, because he doesn't even answer and just looks at her for a moment with an absent-minded look.

"It looks like you could use the chocolate milk yourself."

Gillian's tone is cheerful, but she's trying too hard. And to reinforce the hard effort she steps into the office.

"Grumpy old man, now?"

This seems to actually get a response from him.

"I've come all the way from gentle to grumpy in a second, Foster?"

"Just saying."

She uses the opportunity of conversation to go sit in a chair in front of him. She looks him in the eye trying to get a connection, a reading. But it's blurry and it's difficult and he's never easy to get.

"What's worrying you?"

"Nothing is, luv."

She tilts her head, showing him she's trying to read him. There's something going on, that is clear. There's no use in trying to hide she's realizing it.

And, anyway, that's what she does best. She asks. She waits around. And then she asks again until he speaks, whenever he actually decides to speak or do something about it, which is not often.

"You can't fool me, Cal."

He seems a little annoyed now, and he gives her _that_ look. The look that says she's being noisy and motherly and he doesn't like it.

But then he smiles, showing his teeth.

"I'm not fooling you, Foster. I don't like chocolate". He smirks cockily, preparing a joke. "That is, I only like it when you're having it and you get this brown mustache that makes everybody turn around because it's just so sexy."

He tries to make it sound devilish, but his smirk is not genuine. It's not _his_ smile. It's not Cal.

"You don't want to tell me, fine."

Gillian shrugs her shoulders, and even though her tone is soft, she makes sure to shoot him a see-you-through stare. Of course, she can't totally see through him; just enough to know he doesn't want to talk.

"Tell you what?"

She pauses to observe him, expecting something from his eyes.

"Is it Emily? Is she okay after the break-up?"

Cal takes a moment to answer the question. It really _is_ amazing how easy it is to lie to her. How easy it is to lie to everyone, except Emily; but, now, how easy it is to lie _to her_. He can do it in a second, with a single look, if he just wants to use Emily to get Gillian out of this thing, _whatever the thing really is about_. And she will buy it.

But he doesn't want to do that. Or he does. He's not sure, that's the problem with him.

"Emily's fine. She ditched him, I told you that much."

Gillian looks at him more intently now. There's worry in her face. He could even say she looks slightly alarmed, probably because she was expecting to reach out to him with the comment about Emily. She expected it would lead her somewhere. But he doesn't want her to go anywhere now, _not yet_.

Just not yet.

"I don't want to push you", she calmly says. "I know you don't like being pushed."

"Who does?", he interrupts her.

"What do you mean?"

She feels like she's touched a bone. She's not sure which one, but there is a reaction. She _is_ a shrink, after all.

"Who likes being pushed?", he clarifies, knowing she understood perfectly. He seems annoyed again. "Don't shrink me, Gil. Not now, please."

The _please_ at the end completely startles her, and the fact that he's called her Gil only reinforces her idea that something is not quite right with him and that she hasn't realized till now because she's been too busy trying to work herself out of the mourning over Claire. When she first entered the room and asked him what was worrying him, she only did so because he seemed a little too moody lately and she wondered if she might help him come out of his shadow, the same way he was helping _her_. But she realizes now that she was wrong. He doesn't want her help. Or, more precisely, he doesn't want her to act professionally about him. But now she can see that he's truly worried about something, and that he's not ready to tell her. And she wonders how she should act, if not professionally, since being a shrink is part of who she is when she is a friend. It's in her nature. Most people would reject that idea, especially other shrinks; but she knows it doesn't work like that. She has weapons that she knows how to use to help others. To help Cal, who is, by far, the truly difficult one to help sometimes. And, that way, she helps herself too. She wouldn't sign a paper in a Psychology Congress stating that, though. But she knows it works like that. And it works just fine for her, even now that she's acting as a lie detector and not as a therapist.

So - what are the facts?

Truth is he's been like this for about two weeks, maybe more (she can't really put herself to remember for how long, she's been that selfish), but he's been going on from exquisite gentleness to silent absentmindedness and even to dire irritability at almost everyone but her. That explains why she feels a little thrown aback now that she realizes he is annoyed _also_ at her. But that is a lot like Cal… It's no big news at all. There are times when he is annoyed at everybody around him. She's usually another victim to his bad mood; well, mostly, she is a special victim because she's the only one who can both put up with him and scold him at the same time.

It's the fact that he's not joking or running away that is actually surprising. It's the fact that she can actually _see_ that he's trying to hide something from her.

He's closing off, but not in the usual fashion. He's not being obnoxious and what he said can't even be considered a deflection of any sort. There's something sweet and sad in his plea, and she perfectly hears it. And she wonders what it means.

_Please_.

He knows he's made a mistake and he's got to do something to fix it.

You don't say please to a shrink. Especially when you never beg for anything. Especially when you're a jerk and a clown and a bloody winner at life.

"C'mon, Foster", he starts his retracting movement with a skeptical grin. "I'll buy you two hundred shakes if you let me get out of this room in time for dinner." He makes a pause to watch her reaction. "I'll even get you _the_ two hundred shakes for dinner for that matter, if you leave me alone to work."

She's not buying it and he can tell. But, surprisingly, she accepts the truce.

She smiles softly.

"All right then. I'm buying you dinner in exchange for a chocolate shake."

She gets up, ready to leave. But her voice is admonishing, although terribly sweet. She wants to make a point here.

"And you better not leave the office without me tonight."

He can't refuse the plan now, since he proposed it, even if he did just to escape the end to which the conversation was heading.

He got trapped. She just won. She's a good shrink, after all.

And he said _please_. Please, someone come shoot him in the head for committing the most foolish mistake Cal Lightman has ever made.

_Please, Gil_. Just the two things he should never say. Not now. And he said that too.

But that is _his_ problem. He's not sure. He can't make up his mind.

He knows she's just letting him go for the moment. He knows she's got something between her teeth, something that belongs to him, and that she won't give up now. She gets around the prey she pursues and she won't be satisfied until she gets a coherent response from him. And now he's got to think about it. Something that suits her idea of him. Emily, his mother, even his father would do. He doesn't really know what to say. Perhaps he could fool her – for sure he could – but what would be the purpose of that? He can always fool her. So what? And besides, he's never done it. Not like that. Sure, he's done other things to her, things that are certainly worse. He has pissed her off, he has pushed her away, he has hidden important information from her, he has tested her, he has come dangerously close just to feel it up and realize she was the one closing off, he has corrupted her loyalty to him, driving her nuts, making her wonder about where they really stood regarding each other. But all of those things he did for a purpose, right? He was trying to prove a point. But now there's no point in proving anything anymore. He knows _a lot_ already, but he can't move in any direction. Can he just let it be and keep doing whatever he is doing right now, which is nothing? Can he just stay like this while he watches her, trying to reach a decision which might ruin every little thing they have finally, and big time? Can he really do that? Can't she, for god's sake, give him some bloody time?

But time - for what?

Time for waiting for something for which he doesn't have a name yet. Emily does have a name for it, though. But he doesn't like that name.

She does not leave the office yet, however. She's making time, waiting for some confirmation that he agrees on the truce. She's not going to quit, and she's making that clear, but she's just looking at him while she kind of leaves without leaving. She's gotten really good at this game; she can delay it or speed it up, keep it going for as long as she wishes to do it, and he can only sit there at her mercy. Tables have turned, or perhaps it is him who has taught her to be better at the game he initially started. Did he start it, really? Or was she always a master at that?

"I'll go get you at 7. That all right?", he asks just to finish it.

He's not the thinker, he's not a guy to take time to reflect on things. He's the one who makes _her_ annoyed or uncomfortable, but it doesn't happen in reverse. He's not patient. He doesn't need time to act on things. And then, there lays the irony that is making him feel like a living joke: that is precisely what he's been doing all this time. He's been taking lots of time to act, or rather _not_ act, on things. At first, it was easy. Everything seemed to fall right on its place. He was married and she was married. Then he stopped being married, but she was still and looked as if she would be forever, so he did not have to worry about it. Then, since who knows when, it started being a little bit more complicated. He tried to come closer to her when she got divorced, but he also tried to respect the distance she imposed on him. He tried to work his way to her, but he did it his way, not anybody else's: he allowed himself to shine at his best, messing things up, creating chaos and confusion all over, guided by the secret hope that made him believe that she would at some point _do_ something which would show him... whatever there was to be shown.

He's been delaying things… trying to find a name and a solution.

His daughter found out the name. But he has no clue what the solution is.

"Perfect", she answers, striking him with a winning smile. She's accepting the offer to go for dinner.

God knows shrinks are competitive.

"Now go do some bloody finance so we don't go down."

Never mind the resort to finance, she doesn't take it badly. Her smile widens, juicy and open as a fruit, her gums showing in victory. It's lightning to him. It makes him feel almost dazzled to see that she's having fun again. She really does enjoy the game and there's a certain happiness he feels every time he realizes it.

_"I'll_ pick _you_ up here at 7", she warns, lifting her long index finger. "You keep working." She looks around, actually doubting he was working at all. "And don't you lose any of my money."

And there she goes: she finally leaves his office with a smirk in that glowing face of hers. And she's laughing about money, right there. She's making fun of the reason why she almost stepped out on him some months ago. She's mocking him for his crazyness, which almost got the company ruined and him killed, for that matter. He would find that delightful if it weren't because… well, because now there was _nothing_ delightful in the emotions he was feeling about this whole partnership thing. It may have been a giant mistake if he can't manage to keep himself under control. If he can't manage to do what he does best: serve and protect, only on his own terms, and get away with it.

He's pretty sure she was on the verge of leaving the company then, when they were in the red. And yet – she didn't. She is here. And she's laughing at him.

* * *

_A/N: Let me know if it's horrible, especially Cal's characterization. I do think this would've never been the way the LTM writers would have written Cal in season 4. But, for some reason, I wanted to try this angsty road where Gillian's actually the one who's got the upper hand once Cal has voiced his feelings to Emily._

_Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thanks a lot! And you weren't even a little mean, so I definitely love you all! LOL _

_njofra: I just worry too much, that's just me :) I get pretty obsessed about the characters' voices, and Cal is really difficult for me to write._

_SassyCop, starlight354: thanks! I always write the characters' thoughts when I get into a story. Of course, that requires a lot of imagination and a little boldness to try to get inside their heads, but I just love to do that!_

_titousphinx: Merci!_

_This is going to be 3 chapters. It's too long, so I'm solving it in 3, not in 2._

_And, of course, one last thing: you can still be mean! Please let me know if Cal's not sounding right anymore, because it's getting trickier._

* * *

She is on time, as agreed upon. 7 pm.

At 7.30 they're already sitting at a really small diner where big burgers are also served for dinner. Cal loves this little place, since he's not a fan of fancy restaurants, and is quite surprised to find out that Gillian's taking him here, because she sure _is_ a fan of nice, elegant restaurants herself. He can't help shuddering in disgust when he remembers Dave Burns. He used to take her to fancy places with names that were spelled in French. Bistros. Les Fleurs Du Pont Neuf. Le Bleau Perroquet. Not that often, but he did. Cal remembers he did, and he's got pictures and footage that prove it.

God, he hated the guy. Captain America, red-haired savior of the free world, heroic sacrifice and all.

But tonight she has taken him to one of his favourite places. That must mean she cares. Which is not necessarily good news for him, at this precise moment, because he'd rather keep watching her from a distance and caring for her at the other end of the rope. He doesn't want her to come too close. He knows he's on the verge of giving it all away. But he's not sure. Not yet.

He decides on buying some time while acknowledging her efforts.

"Yeah, Foster, I've got to admit you're working hard on this", he mischeavously says, wiggling his brows a little to emphasize the joke. "I'm starting to fear whatever favour you're gonna ask of me."

"I'm not asking you for anything other than a hamburger and _my_ milkshake. And there are plenty of them here."

She seems to be in a good mood. And he is starting to feel sort of nice, too. Or at least he's getting close to the feeling, the feeling he used to have whenever they casually did this - dinner, drinks - and it was innocent.

Well, it was never innocent on his side. But at least he wasn't thinking about it.

She's wearing a really nice black dress he's seen her in a million times, perfectly hugging her figure. She's overwhelmingly, breathtakingly beautiful in every cliched sense he can think of. However, every word that he can use to describe her beauty - it's just not enough, because she's always beautiful like that, no matter if she's working a case with him, wearing her leather jacket or a formal skirt, or alone at her house watching some awful, despicable soap opera, dressed in sweatpants and an oversized wool sweater. It's not like he's ever seen her _alone, _of course. But he can imagine how she looks when she's alone. He knows her. He's surprised her a couple of times by appearing unexpectedly at her apartment. She wears a ponytail and her jeans. She wears a dress or a suit or a jacket. She puts her make up on, or her face is washed up and fresh, freckles conquering space, or her eyes are puffy because she just got out of bed. No matter what, pink, red or black, she's always the kind who takes over the whole room without making _any_ noise or nuance. She's always the silent one, the unknowing one who remains confident, who steps there and shines with the most outstanding, delicate mixture of unconsciousness and flirtatiousness, forcing everybody to turn their head and linger on her body and her face. She's never the most beautiful one, never the tallest, the fittest, the cutest, the sexiest. But she's always the best. He's seen her do it a million times. Hell, she does it every day. Does she know that she does it every day?

She probably does know.

He thinks about it, collecting some facts and ideas about the day. She wasn't wearing the dress this morning. She must have gone home to change at some point. Fresh, clean and radiant as she can be, he is sitting there crooked, ragged _and_ wrinkled as the man he truly is – or feels he is, anyways. He should have gone home too. But he didn't quite have the guts to make the move of getting himself presentable for dinner. It's just a casual, let's-get-something-to-eat kind of dinner, and so he's wearing his usual jeans and his usual black T-shirt, which by the way is the same one he brought to work yesterday. But it's not dirty. It's just used. It feels right tonight. The funny thing - come to think of it - is that they're both wearing different kinds of black. She's elegant black, classic black, while he's ragged, scrunched-up crow-like black. He'd rather present himself to her as he is, and he's in a black mood, although, ironically, she's the one who's been mourning someone lately. In any case, he's not dirty, he's just a crooked type of a man who just didn't feel like shaving or getting into fresh clean clothes for dinner. He's just your usual share of Cal, perhaps slightly worse, and she'll have to take it this way, anyway.

The waitress brings two giant hamburgers with fries and, after she leaves, he offers his trademark smirk, knowing all too well he has to play his part.

"Goodness, Foster, are you really going to eat that? Or is that dead cow going to eat _you_?"

Her eyes shine in silent laughter, fooled for a second.

"I can probably eat more than you do, you know", she smirks back, but she nibbles a fry instead of attacking the dead cow. "This only means extra gym hours."

They're silent for a moment, apparently getting busy with the food, and then she breaks the ice, thoughtfully nibbling another fry.

"So I wanted to bring you here to thank you."

"What for, luv?"

"You've been really nice to me in the last weeks, Cal, ever since Claire's death." Her voice breaks when she mentions her friend's name, but she makes an effort to continue, and her eyes don't lose the warm shade of blue he's always trying to catch. "You really helped a lot. I mean, you always do, but still… more."

Does he always help? No, he doesn't always help her. But he knows he does whenever it is really important.

And she knows that too, even though sometimes they don't agree on the meaning of what's important to both of them.

"You don't have to thank me for that, luv", he assures, shamelessly chewing on a huge bite of the hamburger. "I was worried for you."

"I know."

They pause the conversation and she tries to search for him, but he seems disconnected again. He's looking at her, but not really – he's not looking _right_ at her in that way that usually makes her uncomfortable but that she's learned to resist, even to reject on occasion. It seems weird again and she turns her head in order to see if there's someone else he may be paying attention to. It wouldn't be the first time. Lord knows he does that constantly. He spots things, different things in his surroundings, getting distracted, sometimes directly leaving her with her mouth still open: lies people tell or a nice pair of legs.

Not this time. There's nothing around he can be looking at. He's just not entirely here, like it happened before - earlier in his office.

She decides to try again.

"So the thing is - I think I owe you one for being so sweet. Besides, you haven't really tried to get killed or robbed lately, which is also a great improvement."

She grins when she says the last part, expecting a fake offense and a protest. It's not like she really expects him to _ improve_. She knows better than that. But she decidedly appreciates it when he's not getting murdered or attacked or blowing important people off, although she delicately leaves that part out because... well, because she knows better than that.

He seems a little off and she just wants to help.

"Yeah", he admits. "I've been a good boy, haven't I?"

"You have, certainly. More than a good boy." She pauses again, gives him a dazzling smile. "A sweet guy."

For some reason he's not responding easily to her words. Not like she hoped he would respond, again with a devilish grin and a silly, possibly edgy joke, some continuation to the one he started before she said she wanted to thank him, or a retort that would pick up on the dead cow thing.

He's deadly serious instead.

And, for the first time, she feels slightly frightened, not really alarmed; frightened that her words and whole attitude are just getting things worse.

Her disorientation immediately shows in her face, no matter how hard she tries to cover it. What the hell has been going on with him during these weeks she hasn't been looking? Did he do something? Did someone do something to him?

"Gillian, I'm no gentleman. You know that", he abruptly says, confirming and expanding her fear. "I'm not a nice guy, I'm not the sweet guy, all right? We both know that and it's fine. It's better this way."

He's just really good at catching liars and pissing people off. That's not what he does for a living, that _is_ his life. And she knows it.

Although he's clearly gone out of line here. _Out of line_. Funny. Sometimes he thinks he's been out of line for years, that the line purely exists so he can just cross it from time to time, check everything out on the other side and go back to _his_ side. Maybe that's what she wants him to do, too. Jump the line, then restore it. Although the line was never meant to separate _them_. It was meant to keep them from talking about the things they _saw_, and it was enacted and then re-enacted before he stopped being certain of the things he was seeing. But now he can see his words got to her. Well, it makes sense. It's natural. He said the words knowing they would get to her. He did it on purpose, and now he wonders why he can't just shut up and be nice for a little while before going back home and getting a Scotch and laying in bed and snoring his worries away.

He doesn't know what to do, so he might as well do this, even if he doesn't (again) like it.

"I know that", she mutters slowly but clearly, always composed, always understanding.

She may be frightened, but she's also deadly curious. Even a sixteen-year-old high-school student would know there's a lot more to those words. A shrink would sense a weakness, a shrink would know what to do with that, and the shrink in her is thinking fast of the best approach to the matter. Unfortunately, the shrink in her is also shrinking at the fright and anxiety she's feeling over this right now.

Instead of saying something else, she shoots him a look that is halfway cautious, halfway warm, letting him know she's expecting more.

But he doesn't continue. He just shuts up and looks down at his hamburger, entertaining himself with another huge, shameless bite.

She leaves aside the fork and the knife, disarmed.

"Okay, Cal, what did I do? Why are you mad at me?"

Maybe it's not something that happened to him, something someone did to him, something he did. Maybe it's something _she_ did.

And now she _has_ to find out.

"I'm not mad at you, luv", he replies, trying to achieve the same light-hearted tone he usually deploys with her, although it's too late now. "Why would you say that?"

"You obviously are", she retorts, calm but serious. "You're not talking to me."

He looks right at her (finally), raising his brow in questioning mode. Then he leans forward, making an effort to be direct. If there's something he can't allow to happen is to let her think he's mad at her. Because what would be the purpose of that? She didn't do anything wrong, and the woman's just recovering from the death of a friend, and he _is_ her _best damn friend_. He's supposed to help her. He's been doing a great job of that. And now he's fucking it up.

Specialty of the Lightman house. Best friends and fuck-ups.

"But that's not new, eh, is it?", he jokes, his grin reassuring her and trying to relax the mood. "I just don't want you thinking what's not."

She leans against the back of her seat, distancing herself to get a sight of him.

"I'm not getting any wrong idea", she says, sounding confident even though she doesn't really know what they both mean. "Why did you say you're not a gentleman?"

Upon pronouncing the words, she suddenly remembers: this morning she said something to him about becoming a gentleman, but it was a joke. She was teasing him. She still doesn't have a clue what's going on with him, although she now knows that, whatever it is, it has something to do with her.

"It's nothing", he says, shrugging it off while he squeezes the mustard bottle in his hand. He hates ketchup but he loves mustard, and the cow is right now drowning in yellow. "It's just a comment. It doesn't have to have a meaning, you know."

"It's not. It's…"

"Yeah, Foster, you're a therapist, and you did shrink me for a while, but it doesn't mean a thing."

"Please, Cal, it's ABC", she interrupts, slightly rolling her eyes at his gross attempt of deactivation. "And this is not about shrinking you."

"It's your job, so it must be about that."

There goes another bullet off his gun.

A gentleman and a shrink. It sounds like the name of a bad movie, but it's not.

He seems to have found a mine to carve. This is the easiest thing to do for him: he can try to confuse her, argue with her, and then everything will be forgotten as a silly little moment of misunderstanding. If he can manage to focus this on her, driving her on the defensive, he knows he'll be out of the game.

However, she sighs, not losing her patience.

Because she knows how to play the game too.

"It's not my job anymore", she smiles, reminding him she also works as a lie detector. "I just wanna know why you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, Foster. I'm telling ya."

She looks at him, but what is it? She doesn't quite know what it is - yet. Maybe he's saying the truth about not being mad, but he surely is… bitter. And he keeps Fostering her - a clear sign of his back-and-forth struggle to confuse her.

She swallows before starting again, knowing she's getting close to pushing him too much. A shrink would know... not to go over the limit. Sometimes that is all you can expect - silent collaboration, which is silence after all.

But shrinks can go to hell tonight. She damn sure wants to know what's going on with him, especially if it's got to do with her.

"I never implied you _should_ be nicer, Cal. I just wanted to say thank you."

"And you are very welcome, Gillian."

_Foster. Gillian. Gil._

Back and forth, always back and forth.

He stares at her, lifts his glass of beer in a cheering manner that seems too sarcastic and defiant even for his own taste, as much as he wanted to make it appear funny, even endearing in a way, and drinks until the gassy yellow liquid fills his mouth and the remnants of the froth stain his upper lip. He doesn't like American beer. It's shitty. But here he is - he made the stupid mistake of asking for one. Mistake after mistake, like accepting the offer to go to dinner the same day he knew she was going to be pushy and curious about him.

He wonders if he's actually angry at her. Could it be that?

No.

No, it couldn't. But there's this thing inside him that sometimes gets him too far in every situation, and he can't always control it. And he certainly can't always control it with her. Not lately. Least of all, not like he's feeling about this little thing they have going on. He has spent too much time wondering about what to do and about what _not_ to do when it comes to her, to a point where he just can't say anymore.

He simply doesn't know what to do anymore, what to say, _how_ to say it, or even why say it now.

Now that she's been mourning. After she almost left (did she almost leave, really? He's afraid to ask.)

"It's no secret I'd be a better man if I were nicer, but I'm not."

There it is: the final bullet shoots off.

Instead of hitting Gillian in the head, she can't hide the glint in her eyes that takes over. Yes, she's growing concerned, but somehow also relieved because she's getting somewhere, and isn't that what she wanted in the beginning?

"You're a good man, Cal."

That's all she says. She wants to be reassuring, even if she is still blind to the reasons why he's feeling hurt.

"Stop it, Foster, will you?", he snaps again, but he doesn't seem so annoyed this time, and he tries to introduce an honest, ironic turn to the conversation. "I don't need comfort, you do, or at least you did, and I'm just good at that. There's nothing to thank me here for."

"You're good at comforting?", she shoots back, trying to ignore his somewhat condescending reference to past situations.

"Oh, yeah."

"You sure?"

She's testing him now.

"I bloody am."

"Okay." She breathes deeply. "So there you are: you're a good guy. A guy who's good at comforting, let's say, women in need."

A smile instantly appears on her face, growing wider as she lets the words out and pauses to check their effect on his face. It's the kind of smile that makes her adorable, that makes her the best, because it's wide and clean, a little twisted too, sexy in that special way of hers. When she smiles like that, he always gets the feeling that there is such truthfulness and amplitude in her it is difficult to explain in words. When it's about him, it's definitely intoxicating, but it doesn't leave him with a headache like after a rough, bad night of alcohol and insomnia. It suddenly reminds him of drinking champagne. She likes champagne. She's not drinking it now, but she likes champagne. He doesn't like it that much, though; he only drinks it on special occasions, occasions when she decides they have to celebrate the new year, or the old year, or whatever year thing there's going on in the planet. Still, he enjoys seeing her get a little tipsy, flirty, sometimes slightly goofy, and he feels he can get tipsy, flirty, slightly goofy in return, not too bad, just a little bit goofy and bad, even though he barely touches the champagne. _That_ is the smile, and he smiles back at her, honestly and widely as well.

Tap-dance, float around the room, graciously walk up and down the walls. That's how it must feel, in black and white colors. The smile.

He'd do it now if he were a gracious, gentle man, which of course he's not.

He's crow-like black, he's a clown and a crooked type of man tonight, a man with a crooked type of humour which he'll hold as a weapon until the end.

"You're so right, Foster, that's exactly what I am, a lady-comforter. I'm good for the cold winter nights."

She chuckles at the joke, her eyes twinkling, but she's still studying him, knowing her words had an immediate, yet brief effect on him.

She can't read him totally. But she can see he's hurt, he's _sad_ under the layer of deviousness and sarcasm. That it is. Sadness. The idea strikes her, making her frightened again after the brief relaxing moment. But why in hell is he like this? He's not even in despair like he was when Zoe left him. And no one has left him anyway. She has seen him close his emotions to her a lot of times, and she's never worried about it because she knows that, at the end, he comes to her and talks. She usually offers herself to listen to him, becoming available for him. _You know we can talk about it_. But now she can perceive he is fighting to hold something back – from her. Specifically from her. Something is unsettling him and, to a certain but still unknown extent, it has to do with her, and that probably means that waiting around for him to express himself won't somehow do this time.

Besides, she _needs_ to know what she has to do with this problem in order to fix it.

Is he sad because he's not a better man? Does he want to be a better man? Why in hell would he want that? Perhaps he's going through some kid of midlife crisis and she hasn't really realized until now. Perhaps that's what his thing with Wallowsky was about. But then - why is this about her? Does he need her to tell him? To acknowledge him? Isn't that what she's doing right now? Well, he's not taking it very well, he's trying to fight it, so there's something else. He's good enough as he is and he knows it. He's cocky and brave and he's a good man, and she's pretty sure that the people around him reflect him in that sense. The people around him: that would be Emily and herself.

She's sure she's always shown that she thinks highly of him.

"You already are the better man you want to be, Cal."

She dares saying the words, taking the risk.

"Foster."

His tone is a warning. He didn't like the words. He's fighting her on a different level.

She falls silent now. His tone is sharp but his eyes are not cold to hers. Still, she's trying too hard and she knows by experience – it is _her job_, definitely – that trying too hard never gets you anywhere near the truth. It can drive you further away, really.

If she were a good shrink she'd just leave it alone for the night.

Just let out a joke. Just flirt a little, say something silly, change the topic.

Talk about a case! Anything.

But she can't help it.

"Can't you just…?", she insists, knowing she's making a mistake, her dead-cow hamburger still laying almost untouched on the plate.

"Just what? I'm getting tired of this, Foster", he snaps, his stare dirty and cold. "Stop messing up my head."

She leaves the fork on the plate and confronts his stare, her face suddenly reddening at the sound of her own words when she starts pronouncing them.

"You mean that like you've never done that in your whole fucking life."

This is how he realizes that, finally, he got her mad.

Lightman's specialty of the house.

A waitress comes to the table and shyly asks if they want another beer, sensing the tension. Maybe they should hire her.

Cal sends her away with his hand and a pleading glance. Gillian doesn't even look at her, her eyes wandering from the fork to the hamburger to Cal.

"Look, I'm sorry, Foster", Cal apologizes, once the waitress is gone. "I didn't mean it that badly. I just prefer not to talk about it right now."

The apology softens her features again.

"I shouldn't have pushed you."

It was a long shot. But it felt like she was getting so close.

They fall silent again, and she can sense Cal is looking for something else to say. As for her, she's not going to try anything new. She's just going to let it be.

"I'm sorry, Foster."

Maybe a repetition of the apology will do?

"Cal, it's all right."

"I shouldn't have said that."

"It's all right", she repeats too. But then, boldly, she ventures in again. "I'm not messing up your head, though. I wish you could at least see that, because I'm just worried about you. That's the only thing."

"I know, luv", he concedes from his shell. "But I'm fine, everything's fine, Gillian."

_Foster. _

_Gillian. _

_Gil._

Always back and forth to a point it's exhausting.

She gives him a cooler look that says she doesn't believe him, but it's all right, she's not going to try again.

And somehow it makes him feel stupid.

He really is a dumbass. Of course she wasn't shrinking him or messing up his head, because his head is already messed up. She's worried about him, and now she's even _more_ worried than before, and the worst of it is that _he_ got her to realize that all of this has something to do with _her_.

Applause.

Feelings. They suck. They stink.

He should just read people for money and raise his daughter, which he seems to be doing pretty decently, and stop living any other kind of human life whatsoever. Especially the one related to the _love_ word.

Feeling nostalgic of past times, Cal thinks it would be so much easier to go back to the place where he was before he had that conversation with Emily. He was reckless, he could be cruel, but he was there for Gillian, every time. Maybe not in the best possible way.

Maybe he was there in the worst possible way. Who knows?

He does know.

It's been clear to him for ages. And still he has managed to keep her by his side.

Gillian asks for the bill and pays with her card. Then she gets up, looking tired and sort of sad. Now both of them are exhausted _and_ sad, he thinks.

He wonders if he should count on the chocolate shake to fix the end of the evening. Will chocolate do? Childish things, childish jokes? But he looks at her grabbing her purse and her coat and he decides against it.

No, chocolate won't do this time.


End file.
